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Teen lifers: Warner Batty Jr. came to terms with what he did, and says his freedom takes second place

Batty and another man beat a woman to death in 1975. He eventually met a relative of his victim.

By RICK LEE Daily Record/Sunday News

Updated:
02/12/2013 12:26:28 AM EST

Eleven York County juveniles have been sentenced to life in prison without parole since 1974.
Many have spent decades in prison.
Any comfort the victims' families took from the sentence was threatened when, last year, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled a mandatory life sentence for a juvenile found guilty of murder is unconstitutional.
Will those York County teens -- now adults -- have a chance at parole? Some are asking for a second chance. (Illustration by Samantha K. Dellinger, York Daily Record/Sunday News)

Life, imprisoned

· Read about the effect in Pennsylvania of the Supreme Court's decision making it unconstitutional to have mandatory life sentences for teens who have been convicted of murder.

This is the story of one of those convicts now in limbo.

***

Warner Ervan Batty Jr. had been in custody for five years -- jailed without bail and then the first few years of his life-without-parole sentence -- when he came to terms with what he did.

"I had a ... what do you call it when things all of the sudden come together?" he asked.

An epiphany?

"I had an epiphany," he said. "I was laying in my cell. I heard myself saying, (in a whisper) 'What did you do?'"

Batty was 20 years old then. It was five years after he and another teen, Donald Riviera, had intimidated a 26-year-old mother of four, on her way to a corner grocery store, into going with them to an abandoned York house.

Although York County court records state that Betty Marie Ilgenfritz Bradford was forced to go with Batty and Riviera at knifepoint, Batty said, "She didn't know us, that was the threat."

Batty said he and Riviera had been drinking and smoking marijuana from the early hours of that day in 1975. Toward afternoon, they went to a bar on Princess Street and Broadway.

Batty recalled that Riviera, then 19, had some facial hair and was able to convince the bartender he was 21, got a quart of beer and left.

Still something of a babyface at 53, Batty said he was still drunk and stoned while he loudly argued with the bartender, trying to get some beer.

When he left the bar, he saw Riviera across the street "talking to some young lady."

"It transcribed from a robbery to, uh, let's go to this abandoned house where people have sex," he said.

Word apparently went out, and the woman was gang-raped by an undetermined number of men over the next hours.

"I wasn't interested in sex," Batty said. "That doesn't make it any better. But I witnessed it. Other guys came and left."

He recalled that during the gang rape, he thought to himself, "I'm just sitting and watching this. I've got nothing to worry about."

"As the night progressed," he said, "the issue became more concerned about her reporting to the police."

Batty calmly confirms he and Riviera beat Bradford to death.

Warner Batty
(submitted)

Two days later, someone he suspects took part in the rape was picked up by police and identified him and Riviera as Bradford's killers.

He said he initially denied "everything."

"Eventually, I confessed," he said. "They brought my co-defendant to the door. He was shaking, there were tears in his eyes."

Talking about his epiphany, Batty said it was like the time he dropped 375 pounds of barbells on his chest.

"I didn't get hurt. But it was like 400 pounds of weight on me when that epiphany happened," he said. "I started thinking about it, I couldn't sleep. There was depression."

He said prison psychiatrists and clergy were of no help, telling him to, "Get yourself together."

He said it was other inmates who helped him come to terms.

"Now I'm facing myself," he said, whispering, "I did that, I did that."

He said he realized that, "I hadn't forgiven myself. God had forgiven me."

He said he knew he had God's forgiveness when he "began to experience peace in my heart."

"At some point, you realize you can't walk around every day thinking about this," he said. "You'll drive yourself crazy."

He said now, "I've got it in a place. I've got it in perspective."

Batty said he grew up in the Airville-Delta area where he, his five sisters and brother experienced their share of racism. He said other children told him they couldn't play with him because their parents said, "you're not like us."

At age 13, Batty's family moved to York, around McDonald Lane and South Queen Street.

"The city was much faster," he said. "Life was a big world. I was afraid.

"It was, 'Who are you and what to you have to offer?'"

He recalled his sisters getting into fights.

At age 15, "I didn't think much of myself," he said. "I never did. Every day I woke up it was, 'Not another day.'"

He said he started drinking to counteract the fear and self-loathing.

"I drank three or four times a week," he said. "Fall down drunk, throw up drunk, carry me home drunk.

"Sober, I had too many problems. Drunk, I didn't have to think about it."

Batty said, when his father was not mistreating his mother, he "didn't express his emotions, his feelings.

"He never treated her right. I never saw her treated the way a wife should be treated, looking back.

"We (Batty and his father) never did anything together. I don't remember a lot of encouragement (or) influential people in my young life, looking back," he said. "Now, I'm in here, talking to young people, trying to give the positive reinforcement."

Batty quickly admits his lack of self-respect meant he also had no respect for others, including Bradford at the time she was raped and killed.

"We do things and some are really, really bad," he said. "I've got to understand why this young guy (himself) can do this. I just felt so cowardly my whole life."

In 1999, Batty met with two of Bradford's now adult children. He said one daughter told him, "If there were so many people in the room, you would think there would be one person with some sense."

"I told her, unfortunately it wasn't me," Batty said.

Bradford's family could not be reached for comment.

"I thank God that I've lived this long to take responsibility for my actions," Batty said. "I'm more concerned about the family of the person whose life I took and my family than my own freedom."

Batty recently requested -- and was denied -- a resentencing hearing following the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling in June that mandatory life without parole sentences for murderers under the age of 18 are unconstitutional. York County Judge Richard K. Renn ruled at the time there is no other legal sentence available for Batty.

He said he remains "overly optimistic" about getting out of prison.

Life, imprisoned

In June 2013, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that it was unconstitutional to sentence a juvenile found guilty of murder to mandatory life in prison.
A new Pennsylvania law bans that sentence for convictions after June 24, 2012. But state courts haven't addressed whether or how that ruling could affect those already serving life without parole.
Some of York County's teen lifers want a second chance.

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